Partridge Foundation grants $1.25M to Jackson scientist for promising glaucoma research

Date: August 20, 2008

Bar Harbor, Maine -- The Partridge Foundation, a John and Polly Guth Charitable Fund, has announced it will make a $1.25 million grant to The Jackson Laboratory to support Professor Simon W.M. John's glaucoma research. Dr. John is exploring new avenues of treatment for glaucoma, one of the world's leading causes of blindness.

In glaucoma, the nerve cells, or neurons, that connect the eye to the brain lose function and die. These nerve cells are known as retinal ganglion cells. Since retinal ganglion cell axons -- similar to electrical wires -- travel through the optic nerve and connect the retinal ganglion cells to the brain, glaucoma is also characterized by degeneration of the optic nerve.

Most currently available treatments for glaucoma focus on reducing harmfully high pressure inside the eye (known as intraocular pressure), one of the strongest known contributing factors to glaucoma. However, these treatments may have side effects and aren't always effective in preventing the nerve damage that is the actual cause of blindness in glaucoma patients.

Besides his position on The Jackson Laboratory research faculty, Dr. John holds the prestigious title of Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, a designation granted to the nation's most innovative researchers.

Dr. John said, "The Partridge Foundation grant will help us to rapidly push ahead with a key project towards developing a novel and robust therapy against glaucoma. This generous and exciting award will speed this research by years, by providing several essential salaries and experimental resources."

The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution and National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center based in Bar Harbor, Maine, with a facility in Sacramento, California. Its mission is to discover the genetic basis for preventing, treating and curing human diseases, and to enable research and education for the global biomedical community. The Laboratory is the world's source for more than 4,000 strains of genetically defined mice, is home of the mouse genome database and is an international hub for scientific courses, conferences, training and education.

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